Name _________________________
Rethinking the American Dream SOURCE: Kamp, David. “Rethinking the American Dream.” Vanity Fair April 2009.
The year was 1930, a down one like this one. But for Moss Hart, it was the time for his particularly American moment of triumph. He had grown up poor in the outer boroughs of New York City—“the grim smell of actual want always at the end of my nose,” he said—and he’d vowed that if he ever made it big he would never again ride the rattling trains of the city’s dingy subway system. Now he was 25, and his first play, Once in a Lifetime, had just opened to raves on Broadway. And so, with three newspapers under his arm and a wee-hours celebration of a successful opening night behind him, he hailed a cab and took a long, leisurely sunrise ride back to the apartment in Brooklyn where he still lived with his parents and brother.
Crossing the Brooklyn Bridge into one of the several drab tenement neighborhoods that preceded his own, Hart later recalled, “I stared through the taxi window at a pinch-faced 10-year-old hurrying down the steps on some morning errand before school, and I thought of myself hurrying down the street on so many gray mornings out of a doorway and a house much the same as this one.… It was possible in this wonderful city for that nameless little boy—for any of its millions—to have a decent chance to scale the walls and achieve what they wished. Wealth, rank, or an imposing name counted for nothing. The only [requirement] the city asked was the boldness to dream.”…
Hart, like so many before and after him, was overcome by the power of the American Dream. As a people, we Americans are unique in having such a thing, a more or less official “National Dream.” (For example, you never hear people wanting to go live the Canadian Dream or the Slovakian Dream.) This dream has its roots in the Declaration of Independence, in the famous bit about “certain unalienable Rights” that include “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” This is what makes our country and our way of life attractive and magnetic to people in other lands.
Yet, in the book that popularized the term “the American Dream,” there was never any promise of extreme success. The Epic of America, written by James Truslow Adams, and published in 1931, only spoke of an idea that he called “that American dream of a better, richer, and happier life for all our citizens of every rank.” He described the “American Dream” as “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement.” It is an attainable outcome, not a pipe dream.
That last part—“according to his ability or achievement”—is what makes the American dream so different to so many people. A “better and richer life” is promised, but for most people this won’t be a rich person’s life. “Opportunity for each” is promised, but that opportunity is based on each person’s ability. So, some people may have an opportunity to go to law school and become a wealthy lawyer. However, other people may not have the ability to go to law school, but may have an ability to work with their hands, and so they become a successful auto mechanic. Either way, the American Dream is within reach for all those who aspire to it and are willing to put in the hours.
AFTER READING, PLEASE ANSWER:
1) Based on what you have read, what do you think “the American Dream” means?
2) Do you feel that Moss Hart’s quote, “Wealth, rank, or an imposing name [count] for nothing,” is true in America today? Please give an example from your own experience to support your opinion.
3) Why would someone be wrong if they said the American Dream means “to get rich and famous”? Explain, using information from the reading.